Life in the Deters' household

We've had a busy week as usual. Joe went back to the dentist. We were thinking we would get the wire off that is glued to five of his teeth. But apparently it needs to stay on about 16 weeks...during all the trauma I thought it was only six weeks. It's been 7 weeks and we are to check it again in 10 weeks. He did get to have the finishing touches to the root canal done on that tooth though. He had testing this week and his scores shot up this year which was very exciting. He's always been a bright child, but these tests don't always reflect that. This year in 4th grade he showed tremendous growth - his whole class did so kudos to Mrs. Nelson. Jessica had Mrs. Nelson for 4th grade and that's when she wrote her book about the mysteries of the teacher's lounge. Joe also had two baseball games this week and two practices.

Ben and I went to the dentist on Thursday. He goes to a dentist which is in Glenwood Springs (about 1 hr, 10 min away). It took longer to get there this time because there had been a rock slide in DeBeque canyon and for about 8 miles the eastbound lanes are closed as they blast rock and cart it away. So those of us going east carefully merge into one of the two west bound lanes. It's quite the site to see though with the gigantic crane they are working with. Ben's appointment went great and he has no cavities again. So the worst for him was when he was three. Since then he's been maintaining. He's been testing also and doing pretty well. Testing is very new to 2nd grade so sometimes they just have to figure out what they are doing. His teacher prepared the class by telling them not to be nervous, this didn't count for anything, etc. So after about 25 questions out of 40, he was like this is dumb and it doesn't count for anything and he just clicked on any answers to get out of there because he didn't want to miss recess. Ai yi yi. So I talked to him about the testing and he did better on the next one. He has one more next week. He's not doing horribly, but we who live with him know how incredibly smart he is; but with test taking like that it doesn't show.

Jessica is busy with school and swimming. She received an A + on an Honors World Geography test this week. He gives them three possible topics that will be the questions and they have to be prepared for all three. He was very impressed with her answer and gave her an A+. That's pretty much her grades all year -- all A+'s. Her head swim coach is busy coaching the boys high school team and the assistant coach has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She's still coaching through the chemo which just started. Jessica is organizing a swim-a-thon that will take place in August. Half of the proceeds will go to the team and half of the proceeds will go to the coach for further treatments. She auditioned for choir for next year and made that. The counselors here have told her swimming is great, but she needs more things too. So she enjoys choir so she is keeping with that and she is treasurer for a club next year and she would love to do speech and debate if she can fit it all in and keep her grades A's. We got a new Speech and Debate teacher to her high school this year. I went to the orientation night and listened to him and I wanted to be in his class. He's well known and respected and super excited about building the program at her high school.

Dave is in Phoenix at a Mecho Shade training right now. The business has slowed down but we are still doing okay. Mecho Shades are used in colleges, hospitals, and businesses and that has been the majority of our business for about the past 9 months. We just found out that Mecho made someone else in Grand Junction a dealer so we're not sure how that will affect us. But God is good always. He plans to go home for Mother's Day weekend as that is about when his mons birthday is also. I went and saw my mom in November by myself and had such a nice time that he wanted to do the same with his mom and dad.

I keep busy getting the kids where they need to go. I also run a Chess club at the elementary school where Joe and Ben go and we are having our annual Chess tournament next Wednesday. So I've been busy ordering shirts and trophies for that. I went on a field trip with Ben to the Art Center this week and that was awesome. The 9th grade CSAP test writing prompt was "Do you think that arts and music should be a requirement for graduation." Jessica wrote on this subject with the affirmative as an answer. Then she took the ACT test and the prompt was the same. After visiting the Art center I was so thankful that the boys school have a full time Music teacher and a full time Art teacher. I plan to sign Joe and Ben up for a one week art camp this summer. The one we are going to sign up for will have making a clay dragon, batik painting, and making a pin hole camera.

Teresa mentioned I hadn't written for a while so here's some of the news. I try to post photos on facebook, but I'll see if I can get some on here from time to time too. Right now I'm on a laptop that has no photos on it to upload.

Have a great day!!!!!